Millions of Americans know the frustration of dealing with the Social Security Administration—endless hold music on the phone, months of waiting for a simple benefit decision, and confusing paperwork. Even before the latest reforms, the Social Security Administration’s customer service—in an agency delivering checks to 70 million Americans—was a mess. The culprit is decades of bureaucratic mismanagement.
The current service crisis at Social Security Administration is the product of years of bureaucratic bloat and inefficiency. As retiree numbers surged with the baby boom generation, the agency failed to modernize. The result? Long lines at field offices, jammed phone lines, and ballooning backlogs. The average hold time on Social Security’s main phone line now hovers around 40 minutes—a frustrating eternity for seniors and disabled Americans left in the lurch by…
